"Venus on Earth" by Dengue Fever (M80/Ioda)-Out now

“Dengue fever: Fun to say; not so fun to have.” That was my friend Annie in an e-mail about the febrile “bonecrusher disease” she got from a mosquito in Thailand in 2003, about the same time as Los Angeles band Dengue Fever came out with their first, self-titled album. Since then, the widely touring band has proven its music—it’s billed as Cambodian-pop-meets-1960s surf rock but is far more bizarrely dynamic— is as fun to have as its Khmer lyrics are to, um, well, attempt to say.

I mean, can you think of a Khmer rhyme for “knyom?”

Featuring the ethereal flourishes of Cambodian lead singer Chhom Nimol, “Venus on Earth,” Dengue Fever’s third album, offers plenty of chances. Founded by brothers Zac and Ethan Holtzman, the band is, with the exception of Chhom, as American as a California roll. Amid Chhom’s lilting choruses and melodies redolent of a smoky nightclub in colonial Indochine are English phrases that hit with crackling clarity of a lovers’ spat—“You called me up because I’m sober and you wanted me to drive,” in the track “Sober Driver,” all to a bass riff that would sound right at home in Iceland with Bjork.

If all this sounds more intricate than the engravings that climb the great temples of Angkor Wat, it’s OK. It is. But peel away the cultural layers and you’ll find the simple, fascinating tale of following a dream.

Ethan first heard Cambodian pop during a trip to the Southeast Asian country and was struck by similarities to American pop music of the 1960s and ’70s. It was inspired by American GIs in Vietnam, whose broadcasts wafted over the border into Cambodia. Cambodian musicians added Khmer touches, and an Asian version of West Coast garage rock was born. But the era was cut short by the brutal Khmer Rouge, which ordered Western-influenced artists to their deaths.

When Ethan returned, the brothers discussed resurrecting the genre and found Chhom singing in a nightclub in Long Beach.  She couldn’t speak much English, but Chhom, who comes from a long line of Cambodian musicians, blew them away with her voice.

The resulting style is inherently compelling. Chhom’s effervescent voice, combined with Khmer lyrics seem to come from another plane of existence rather than Southern California, especially in the number, “Seeing Hands.” But the band’s wide-ranging influences begin to show after a few playthroughs, starting with hints of British band Portishead in the darkly gripping “Clipped Wings.”

In “Oceans of Venus,” an apparent tribute to instrumentals like the Ventures’ “Walk Don’t Run,” driving riffs and a Farfisa organ revive the ghost of beach-dancing surfers.

The somewhat pedestrian English lyrics lacing the album seem, weirdly, to fit right in, with Chhom and Zac’s duet in “Tiger Phone Card,” about a long-distance relationship putting into (English) words the glories and strains inherent in any fusion of cultures.

Blending is evidently a measure of progress for Dengue Fever, as their first album featured mostly Cambodian pop covers. Their second, “Escape from Dragon House” had some originals and some English, and Chhom says their next will be half Khmer, half English. Judging from “Venus on Earth,” the halves will surely not stop there.

Download this track now: "Seeing Hands"